lester quinones

Wagner 2.0 plz
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Re-Filling The Basketball Roster
Brian • April 11, 2019 • 2:06pm

Suddenly relevant again: 2019 basketball recruiting. Iggy seems to be gone, flat out, and the various noises emanating from Jordan Poole's camp don't sound much better. Unless one of them reverses course Michigan will have two roster slots, and four big shoes to fill, before fall. Jordan Poole isn't on ESPN's latest mock draft, FWIW. Iggy is 40th.

Here's a run-down of who's on the board.

2019 Recruits

Franz Wagner. Moe's brother and the biggest fish still on the board.

Wagner is very much on the radar of NBA folks and would be roughly equivalent to Iggy as a recruit: goofily ranked because of his international status but a virtual five-star. Wagner would be an 18-year-old freshman, not a 20-year-old one, and thus might have a longer transition period. Iggy showed up jacked. Wagner is more on the Colin Castleton end of the spectrum. On the other hand he is getting a reasonable amount of time for a good Euroleague team, and playing with pros. He won't be shocked by the level of competition.

Per Sam Webb, if he does come stateside it will be Michigan. He's giving it serious enough thought to warrant articles in German newspapers about the difficult choice before him. Google Translate's whack at the content:

Today Bernau, tomorrow Alba, life is beautiful. Only when asked about the day after tomorrow does Franz Wagner become a little restless. It is obvious, but it annoys. Does he follow the same path as his four-year-older brother Moritz Wagner, who left Alba at the age of 18, changed to college and now lives with the Los Angeles Lakers his dream of the NBA?

"I've seen that if I keep working like I do now, I can play very well here," says Franz Wagner evasively. "I'm still trying to establish myself in the top league." Individual training, he knows, could not have been better his. "Alba is one of the best situations in Europe that you can have as a 17- or 18-year-old. This is the perfect coach (Aito Reneses Garcia, d.Red.), I'm at home and I know all the people. "But he also thinks about something else:" If I sign a contract this summer, I probably do that next 20 years, play basketball. "

In college, that would be another basketball world. But not only that: "You get to know a new culture, other people, something completely different." Why should not one of the greatest German basketball talents think the same as other young people? The notion of being recognized by everyone and even worshiped by some, not only because of its 2.03 meter size on campus, may not be the worst idea either.

There is no trend, insists Wagner, but "it is not easy in any case". And consoles himself with the thought: "I believe that I can not make a bad decision."

Moe will be pushing for Michigan, and hopefully his path leads his brother to Ann Arbor. He's the only guy on the board who reasonably projects as a straight-up no-regression replacement for one of the (projected) departed.

[After THE JUMP: Americans]

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if stauskas is available let's get him a mustache [Bryan Fuller]
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Unverified Voracity Lived In A Monastery I Guess
Brian • February 7, 2019 • 3:12pm

Sponsor note. In addition to getting you out of trouble if you punch a police horse facilitating your small business through the vagaries of contracts and, uh, legal stuff, Richard Hoeg now has a podcast about law as it impacts the games business:

If that seems like your jam, subscribe away. If not, keep Hoeg in mind whenever you get a great idea for a small business or punch a horse. 

It has been stressed to me that if you punch a horse you're on your own, at least in re: Hoeg. I'm sure there are other lawyers for that kind of stuff. Ron Kunstler? 

So Signing Day is in December now. It was… yesterday? Tuesday? Something like that. Nothing happened except the ejection of Amauri Pesek-Hickson from the class; Pesek-Hickson landed at Kansas. Pesek-Hickson seems pretty pissed off. His coach is less so:

Coaches typically bring the hammer down on schools they feel have mistreated their players during the recruiting process. Pesek-Hickson has now publicly stated his belief that he was mistreated by Michigan. Yet when Sims was asked if there will be any issues with Harbaugh recruiting Blue Valley North in the future, he shot down the notion without equivocation.

“Oh no, no, no, no,” Sims replied.

“As far as my feelings with Coach Harbaugh, he has always been upfront and honest with me. He has always done an awesome job every time he has come into my school. He is a great coach from my vantage point.”

“So, I think moving forward, I don’t see any issues that would ever keep Coach Harbaugh out of any one of my schools.”

Webb asserts that Michigan made it clear that a grayshirt was a possibility, and… I mean, when they don't sign you in December* what do you think that implies? Do you receive this news and think "this is fine"?

Michigan probably shouldn't have offered the kid but rather encouraged him to keep his options open past the early period. But also the father's story doesn't pass the sniff test.

*[Quinten Johnson did sign, FWIW, but it was kept quiet so his high school could do a signing day thing.]

2019 basketball recruiting isn't done. Michigan's setting up a visit with Lester Quinones, a 6'5" shooting guard:

Among the schools on him the hardest?

“Maryland, LSU, Michigan, Memphis, Georgia, Ohio State, Pitt, and Miami, been texting a lot.”

Visit plans?

“Michigan is the next visit. It’s getting planned, there is no exact date."

Quinones has a commitment timeline of "late spring," which should give Michigan enough time to determine whether they're suffering attrition, whether it's NBA or otherwise, and thus have a spot for him.

[After THE JUMP: Kansas crocodile tears, Nik Stauskas as an NBA badminton, wyd Tim Drevno]

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